


Tiger

by Carmarthen Juvenilia (Carmarthen)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen%20Juvenilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were younger then, and saner, good merchant sailors if not exceptionally honest. The story of Barbossa's earring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> Jack Tailor is meant to be a younger, saner Jack Sparrow, although I'm not entirely convinced of how Jack Tailor becomes Jack Sparrow. Whether I'll ever write more about this remains to be seen. I'm figuring Jack to be about 35 in PotC, about 25 when the crew was first cursed (which I assumed to be two years before Elizabeth's crossing from England), and this to take place five years before that, putting Jack about 20 and Barbossa (who I'd guess to be in his early forties at the time of the curse) somewhere in the vicinity of 35. Pretty much entirely arbitrary, but that's the timeline in my head.

The _Albion_ dropped anchor offshore from a small village on the south China coast, and the crew took the longboats ashore for supplies. The old Chinaman who bartered with them in a broken combination of English, Portuguese, and Dutch shrank back when he saw the first mate's tiger tattoo, making some sort of superstitious sign. "Bad luck!" he said, waving away the villagers carrying supplies to the boat. "Bad luck, with man-eater in forest. No sell."

"If I kill the tiger will ye give us the supplies without pay?" said Barbossa, who was quartermaster. He was strong and clean-limbed and full of bravado, if not handsome or particularly intelligent, but he possessed a singular combination of canny instinct and bluster that made him very good at cards.

The old man turned to two of his companions and spoke with them in a rapid murmur of Chinese.

"Are you daft, Hector?" the bo'sun hissed. "You can't go after a man-eater alone!"

Barbossa turned to stare coldly at the bo'sun, and whatever was in his eyes made the man back down. "I'll thank ye, Jack Tailor, not to tell me what I can't do, and not to take me name lightly."

"You ain't the Lord, Barbossa," Jack muttered, but stepped back and let Barbossa negotiate with the old man without further objections.

"You kill tiger, we give supplies," he said, bowing.

"We have an accord," Barbossa said lazily, and bowed in return. "That means I agree."

"Good!" the old man said, then barked a few words to the watching villagers. Within minutes the beach was clear of all but the crew.

"Where's he going?" Barbossa asked.

"To the shrine, I expect," Jack said morosely. "To pray for your fool hide."

"'Tis not my hide ye should be worried about, Jack. I'll wager you ten shillings I'll return with that tiger's hide."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Aye, and if you lose, it's more than ten shillings I'll be getting, mate."

Barbossa won the bet, and Jack's ten shillings. He brought back the tiger's fang as a trophy and gave the pelt to a pretty local girl. He complimented her in English, which she didn't understand. She thanked him in Chinese, which he didn't understand, and thanked him again that night in a language they both understood.

The _Albion_ weighed anchor the next day, sailing for Port Royal with a cargo of Chinese silk, Indian furs, and exotic spices. Barbossa wore the tiger's fang dangling from his ear, and the girl's scarf tucked into his waistcoat. His pockets were full of carved ivory filched from the village shrine, and he smiled to himself as he watched the waves.

Honesty was an overrated virtue, with little to be gained by it. True, there'd been a risk that the villagers would notice that the tiger pelt was cured, or that Jack Tailor, too honest for his own good, would notice a pelt missing from the hold, but what man ever won anything worthwhile without bluffing occasionally?


End file.
